cursed with power
by castielofasgard
Summary: The Avengers go on a mission to investigate a decades-old alien crash site. While exploring the wreckage, Pietro and Wanda stumble across a device that swaps their powers and are forced to struggle with the consequences while the team searches for a cure. [Warnings: language, violence, some gore, insanity, lots of disturbing stuff basically]
1. Chapter 1: a touch of destiny

Chapter 1: a touch of destiny

Wanda had seen many strange things since getting her powers and becoming an Avenger. She could be considered one of those strange things herself. So when Steve announced that the team was going to investigate some alien artifacts that had been found at a crash site in a South American rainforest, she took it in stride like it was any other mission. Her brother, however, was another story. Always the cynic, Pietro had raised his eyebrows and scoffed.

"So what, a spaceship crashed in the jungle and we're only just now hearing about it?"

"It's a pretty remote area, especially back when we think it might have landed," said Steve, choosing to ignore Pietro's attitude. "It's no surprise nobody found it 'til now."

"But seriously? Aliens?"

"Dude, you're sitting next to the literal god of thunder and you got your superpowers from a magic stick whose power source currently lives on one of your teammates' face," Tony said. "The fact that you're still a skeptic is actually bewildering."

Pietro scowled and Wanda rolled her eyes, turning back to Steve.

"So, when are we leaving?" she asked.

"Tomorrow morning," Steve replied. "And it might take a while, so pack a bag."

* * *

The quinjet touched down in a small clearing about four miles from the crash site. The Avengers all gathered up their equipment and disembarked. Steve led the way as they hiked single-file through the thick underbrush, holding aside vines and branches for the person behind them. The air was muggy and humid and Wanda eventually had to just pull her hair up into a ponytail so it would stop sticking to her sweaty face.

At last, they reached their destination. The jungle had pretty effectively claimed the ship as its own, covering it in moss and vines, so it wasn't that surprising that it had remained hidden for so many years. Still, the massive, oddly shaped mound surrounded by the deteriorated remains of fallen trees was pretty conspicuous.

"Alright, team, you know the drill," said Steve. "Split up, document what you find, box up anything unusual, and for God's sake, be careful."

They fanned out and began exploring the ship. Wanda was with Pietro, holding a little red ball of light in front of them to light their way as they stepped inside.

"Well, that's not disturbing at all," said Pietro, poking at a very strange skeleton with the toe of his shoe.

"It must have been one of the crew," Wanda said. "There's probably loads more around the place..."

"I definitely believe in aliens now..."

Wanda laughed.

"Come on, let's keep going."

They continued into the depths of the ship, making note of things they found and carefully placing a few artifacts in their bag. They reached the end of a corridor and went into the next room. Inside were rows of beds and lots of strange equipment and tools.

"I think this might've been the medical bay," said Pietro.

"Seems like it," said Wanda. "We could probably save lives with some of the stuff in here."

"Or accidentally turn someone into a human-alien hybrid."

"You know, sometimes I don't know when you're being pessimistic or when you're just joking..."

"I don't even know that sometimes."

They wandered around the room, bagging up some of the smaller tools and a few bottles. When they got to the back of the room, they found a door leading into a small glass room. Inside was a large metal machine.

"Well, we're never gonna be able to stick that thing in our backpack," said Pietro. "Want to get a closer look?"

"We probably should," Wanda replied.

She hesitated a moment, then opened the door and they stepped into the room. The door swung shut behind them and the machine suddenly flickered into life. They moved closer, curious despite Steve's warning to be careful.

"I wonder what it does," said Pietro.

"Well, it's in the hospital, it probably has some medical use."

"No shit."

Wanda rolled her eyes and went back to inspecting the machine.

"Look, there's two sections of this thing," she said. "Maybe it's meant to heal two people at a time."

"How does it heal them, though?" Pietro said. "Do you go inside? See, these holes here, those could be door handles..."

"You know... this thing has been sitting out here for years... I doubt it still works anymore," said Wanda. "I don't see what harm opening it would do."

"You're right," said Pietro, smirking. "I mean, we're supposed to be finding stuff out about these things. How're we supposed to do that if we don't open it?"

"On three?"

"Okay. One... two... three."

They both stuck their hands into the holes, but rather than finding a door handle, a seal clamped down around their wrists and trapped them.

"Shit," Pietro said, trying to tug his hand free.

"It's no use, we're stuck," said Wanda. "We should call for help."

"Uhh, Wanda, the machine is doing something..." said Pietro.

He sounded unusually panicked. And Wanda couldn't blame him. Every display on the machine had lit up and the quiet buzz of the motors had grown to a frantic whirr. Then Wanda felt it. A strange tugging at something inside her, making her head spin and her knees go weak. She tried to pull herself free even though she knew it wouldn't work.

"We've got to get out of here, it's doing something to us!" she exclaimed.

She was getting dizzy now. She looked at Pietro and saw that he had gone pale and looked a little like he was trying not to vomit. The machine began to beep loudly, the displays flashing. Something felt like it was burning up inside Wanda and trying to get out. The pain kept growing and she cried out, doubling over.

"Wanda!"

Pietro reached out for her, but stopped short, collapsing to his knees as the pain reached him too. Then suddenly the machine exploded, sending them flying backwards through the glass walls of the room.


	2. Chapter 2: speed

Chapter 2: speed

Wanda's ears were ringing. She sat up, shards of glass pressing into the palms of her hands, and knew immediately that something was wrong. Something was missing inside of her, that chaotic rushing energy that had grown so familiar since the experiments. It had been replaced by another sort of energy, one that buzzed frantically in her core like it wanted to escape.

She looked around. The room was a mess, pieces of the machine and broken glass scattered all around her. Pietro was lying on the floor a few yards away, moaning and muttering indistinctly, somewhere between consciousness and unconsciousness. Wanda scrambled to her feet and made to go to him, but suddenly she shot across the room and slammed into the wall several feet from where she'd meant to be. She froze, trembling, eyes wide.

 _What's happening?_

She tried to go to Pietro's side again but flew right past him at an uncontrollable speed, knocking over a cabinet as she crashed to a halt.

"Pietro!? Wanda!?"

She looked up at the door. Clint and Natasha were coming, those were their voices. They must have heard the explosion. But Wanda hadn't sensed their approach like she normally would have. And she was bolting around the room like a bullet every time she tried to move. She looked down at Pietro, still mumbling to himself on the floor as he fought to wake up.

"Oh my god."

She knew what had happened. She didn't know how or why, but somehow, that machine had given her Pietro's powers. And if her guess was right, it had also given Pietro hers.


	3. Chapter 3: chaos

Chapter 3: chaos

There was too much going on in Pietro's head. Too many voices and sounds and he couldn't distinguish any of them from the others. It was too loud, too chaotic, and it felt like a river of energy was rushing through his body, sending a tingling feeling to the very tips of his fingers. Then a voice called out louder than the rest, more distinct, more _real_.

"Pietro? Come on, sweetheart, wake up."

Finally he managed to open his eyes. Clint was kneeling over him, looking frantic.

"Oh thank God," he sighed in relief. "Don't scare me like that again."

"What the hell happened?"

Pietro sat up and saw Natasha. She was standing next to Wanda, who was pressed against the wall, trembling. There seemed to be a weird energy around her, one that buzzed and vibrated. It was strangely familiar.

"There was this machine," Wanda said. "We were looking at it, trying to figure out what it was and... well, we probably shouldn't have, but we touched it and we got stuck and... it did something to us."

Clint was frightened and for some reason, Pietro could feel it.

"It gave me Pietro's powers," Wanda continued.

Suddenly the strangely familiar energy surrounding her made sense.

"Oh god," Pietro gasped. _Everything_ made sense now. "I got your powers too, didn't I?"

"I think so."

"We've got to find the others and get out of here," said Natasha. "Do you guys think you can walk?"

"Not yet, but I can run very fast," said Wanda bitterly.

"I should be able to," Pietro said.

"Okay," said Clint. "Let's get going, then. We've got a lot of explaining to do."


	4. Chapter 4: is this how it feels?

Chapter 4: is this how it feels?

They managed to get back to the quinjet by letting Wanda run ahead several yards and wait for the rest to catch up again, and by the time they reached the clearing, she had managed to get accustomed enough to her new speed to be able to walk normally. Tony and Bruce had stayed behind at the crash site to gather up the scattered remains of the machine to bring back to their lab, in hopes that they could figure out exactly what it had done to the twins and reverse it. The rest of the team now waited on the quinjet for the two of them to return.

Wanda sat next to Pietro, fidgeting. This new energy inside her was constantly burning, urging her to move, making stillness practically unbearable.

"I feel like I can't sit still, it's horrible," she said. "Is this how you feel all the time?"

"Pretty much," Pietro replied. "You get used to it."

"How long does that take?"

She was beginning to understand why Pietro was impatient and irritable so often.

"Depends. Some days are worse than others," said Pietro. He sighed heavily. "Sorry, I need to go lie down. My head feels like it's gonna implode."

He stood up and found himself a little corner. Clint went over to him a few seconds later and sat down, letting Pietro rest his head in his lap. Wanda watched them for a little while, feeling sorry for her brother. She knew how overwhelming her powers were, but she was used to them for the most part. Just as Pietro was used to the burning energy that came with his powers. Neither of them were meant to have the other's powers. She could tell that already, and it had only been a couple of hours. Or she thought it had been. Time seemed to crawl so slowly when she was moving so fast through the world. She honestly didn't know how Pietro stood it.

Just then, Tony and Bruce returned, both lugging very heavy backpacks and dripping with sweat.

"That hike was a helluva lot easier the first time," Tony said.

They set down their backpacks and Bruce closed the ramp door. Bucky spun his chair in the cockpit to face front and started up the jet.

* * *

When they returned to Avengers Tower, Clint insisted that Helen Cho take a look at Pietro and Wanda to make sure they hadn't been hurt beyond the obvious. Both of the twins complained but let themselves be dragged off to the infirmary all the same. The rest of the Avengers tagged along to hear the full story of what had happened.

"Well, it doesn't look like that machine did anything to you besides switch your powers," said Helen. "Any injuries either of you got were from the explosion, and those were minimal. Mostly cuts and bruises, which will heal quickly enough."

"I wonder what the point of that thing was," said Sam. "A machine that swaps people's superpowers just seems weirdly specific."

"Well, with any luck, Bruce and I will figure it out soon enough," Tony said. "Until then, you kids get to play around with each others' toys."

"Yeah, fantastic," Pietro said sarcastically.

His head was still aching and he couldn't figure out how to quiet all the noises in his head. He heard the thoughts and felt the emotions of everyone else in the room and it was so loud and overwhelming and then everyone was talking on top of it and why couldn't-

"Everyone just shut up!"

He hadn't meant to shout, he hadn't meant to say anything at all. And as he did, a wave of blue light swept over the room, ruffling people's hair and breaking several glass bottles. The room went silent and the noises in his head dulled to a muffled hum, as though everyone was muttering to each other behind their hands.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to do that... I just..."

"I know," said Wanda quietly. "There was too much going on, wasn't there? Everyone's thoughts in your head?"

"You can hear our thoughts?" Bucky asked.

"Yeah..." Pietro replied. "Nothing distinct. Just a bunch of voices in a crowd. How do I make it stop?"

He turned to Wanda, praying that she'd have an answer, that she wouldn't just say 'you'll get used to it' like he had told her.

"It doesn't really stop," Wanda said, and Pietro's heart sank. "But I can tell you how to control it. You can learn to focus on just the things you want to hear and let everything else become background noise."

"But I'll still have all this whispering in my head?" said Pietro.

"Yes," Wanda replied. "But that's all it will be. Just whispers."


	5. Chapter 5: get used to it

Chapter 5: get used to it

Pietro and Wanda spent a great deal of time holed away in the training gym over the next week and a half, coaching each other through how to control their powers.

Wanda taught Pietro how to block out all the noises in his head and zero in on only the ones he wanted to hear, as well as teaching him a little bit of how to use chaos magic. He particularly enjoyed telekinesis; he hadn't touched a doorknob in four days, though he was still having some trouble regulating how much power he was using to open doors and had dented several walls around the tower.

Pietro was teaching Wanda how to regulate her speed so she could run faster or slower whenever she needed. She was picking up on it pretty well, though sometimes when she got up to her highest speeds she would lose control of her steering or have trouble stopping.

They spent hours on the track, Wanda running laps at dizzying speeds, a blaze of scarlet trailing behind her like a wildfire, while Pietro sat in the middle of the track watching her, surrounded by levitating objects and a shimmering blue light. They knew all this work would eventually be for nothing, but until Tony and Bruce found a way to reverse this, they knew they needed to have at least some sort of control over these powers so they wouldn't hurt themselves.

Wanda was coaching Pietro through levitating the entire benchpress one afternoon when Clint came into the gym.

"That is impressive and all kinds of hot," he said to announce his presence.

Pietro set down the benchpress a little less gracefully than he meant to and grinned.

"You like it?" he said, going over to give Clint a kiss.

"Hell yeah," said Clint. "What was that, like six hundred pounds?"

"The weight doesn't matter so much," said Wanda.

"So, what're you doing here? Just come in to say hi?" Pietro said.

"Bruce sent me, actually. They need you guys in the lab, apparently they've made some progress on the machine," Clint replied.

They followed him up to the lab, where Tony, Bruce, and the rest of the team were waiting. Pietro hopped up to sit on a table, Clint leaned against his legs, and Wanda leaned against the table next to him.

"So what's the verdict?" Pietro said. "Can you get us back to normal?"

Tony and Bruce exchanged a look.

"Well, it's a bit complicated," Bruce said.

"We figured out what the machine does more or less," said Tony. "It's an energy transfer. It takes the energy, or essentially the life force, of an organism and transfers it to another organism. So basically, you could take like, a rat, or if you're really sadistic, another person, and transfer their life force into someone else who's dying."

"But how did that switch our powers?" Wanda asked.

"And why did it blow up?" Pietro added.

"That's where it gets interesting," said Bruce. "Your powers are kind of like energy, so when you guys touched the machine, it latched onto that for the transfer. As for why it blew up, well... basically it went into overload. Your powers were too much energy for it to handle, so it exploded."

"Now for the less fun news," Tony said. "Unfortunately, the machine is too damaged for us to fix, so we can't use _this_ machine to switch your powers back. We do have enough information on it for us to search the globe for another one, but that could take a while and there's no guarantee we'll find one any time soon."

"So we're stuck?" Pietro said.

"Not necessarily," Tony replied. "Like I said, we can find another one."

"All the same, you may want to get used to the possibility that this could be permanent," said Bruce.

Pietro and Wanda looked at each other.

"Okay," said Wanda. "So we should try and learn how to use these powers completely. We should start serious training with them. As Avengers."

"That's probably the best course of action," said Steve. "We're gonna need you guys to help track another of these things down."

"Looks like I've got some work to do," said Tony.

He turned to his desk and cleared away some clutter, grabbing a stack of paper and a pencil.

"What are you doing?" Pietro asked.

Tony looked up at him and grinned.

"I'm giving Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch a rebrand."


End file.
